Featured Artists

Each issue of Southwest Art magazine features in-depth profiles of top artists in the West and beyond. Browse this section to read interesting and compelling stories about artists’ lives and their techniques, artistic styles, and sources of inspiration. Each article is accompanied by plenty of images to show examples of the artists’ works—including sculpture and paintings in oil, pastel, watercolor, and acrylic, and featuring subjects from western landscapes to cityscapes, figures, wildlife and animal art, still lifes, and more.

Sangita Phadke | Taking a Bow

The Onion Family, pastel, 16 x 20.

Sangita Phadke’s dramatic pastel paintings put nature’s beauty in the spotlight

Craig Kosak | Following Raven

Three Winds and the Golden Cloud, oil, 46 x 46.

Legend and myth inspire Craig Kosak’s bold animal imagery

Greg Beecham | All Creatures, Great and Small

Greg Beecham, Summertime Blue, oil, 18 x 30.

Wildlife artist Greg Beecham finds a story in every scene

Larisa Aukon | A Vibrant Pulse

Temples of Today, oil, 40 x 40.

Larisa Aukon infuses her paintings with color and life

Pete Zaluzec | A Natural Talent

Pete Zaluzec | Polar Bear, river stone/bronze, 14 x 8 x 5.

Pete Zaluzec combines stones 
and bronze to endow his sculptures with a lifelike presence

Jared Sanders | A Change of Seasons

Turquoise Door, oil, 30 x 30.

Jared Sanders is drawn to times 
of transition in the western landscape

Karin Hollebeke | Walking Into the Old West

When the Stage Runs Late, oil, 26 x 40.

Karin Hollebeke’s historical paintings let viewers imagine themselves in an earlier time

J. Chris Morel | The Road Taken

J. Chris Morel | Taos Blues, oil, 20 x 24.

Landscape painter J. Chris Morel chooses a painterly path

Sadie Valeri | Refined Beauty

Pewter Pitcher, oil, 8 x 8.

For Sadie Valeri, the beauty is in the precise rendering of details

Kyle Sims | Being There

Kyle Sims | The August Social, oil, 32x 80.

Montana painter Kyle Sims aims for an animal’s essence in his wildlife art